Nine-killer

 

In the flutter-storm

of your indifference,

 

impaled and hung up

on your shrine—

 

your one mistake,

you missed my heart—

 

I found my footing,

one toe, one claw—one, two, at a time.

 

Now, I’m sending you a message

by your own barbed wire—

 

an epitaph to call, to cry your own,

“Here lies

 

your lies”—your blacks, your whites,

gray no more of my skies.

 

I was your patient zero,

but not one of your nine.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

Shrikes impale their prey on thorns and barbed wire fences to save for later and to hold while tearing apart to eat.  They often have black and white plumage and their nicknames are “butcher bird” and “nine-killer,” which refers to folklore that they must kill nine victims before eating one.  And since it’s Day Nine…

 

NaPoWriMo 9  challenge:  use both rhyme and uneven line lengths

Shay’s Word Garden Word List:  epitaph, shrine, skies

 

never mind the white chickens

 

so much depends

upon

 

my reserve dark

chocolate

 

you don't even know

 

 

© 2025 jennifer wagner

 

 

it’s been one of those days--Day 8

NaPoWriMo

a senryu play on WCW’s “The Red Wheelbarrow,” of course

 

cinnamon peal

we like cinnamon

and teal

here in the desert—

 

warm and bright

skies

with a sugar cube cloud

or two

with our spice—

 

like Mexican hot cocoa,

a cup, a flame,

 

as like Ball,

like Burnett,

 

enchan

-tressed

 

in cinnamon, chili,

cayenne—

for squeal-appeal

delight

 

 

© 2025 jennifer wagner

 

dVerse q44:  enchant

NaPoWriMo Day 7

 

*Ball and Burnett:  the red-tressed masters of comedy Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett.

Also, some Cinnamon Teal ducks winter in the southwestern region of Arizona.

 

Mint

-ed

freshly—

 

pOp-hatching open

like a tin, new—

from speckled

blue—

 

with a

boing-bOunce,

songbirds’ primitive sweet breath

bugles

the crisp-fresh

 

reveille

after winter greens

spring.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

NaPoWriMo Day 6 challenges us to write a poem by choosing a number which corresponds to a word from one column (A) and then use the words that appear in the columns (B) and (C) to describe the taste of your column (A) word.  Bonus if you don’t use your (A) in the body of your poem but use it as your title only.  Mine: (A) mint, (B) boing, and (C) primitive.

 

The songbird Swainson’s Thrush lays speckled blue eggs.